Archive for May, 2009
Writing Challenge Roundup: May
In place of this week’s Wednesday Writing Challenge, Typescript now offers Writing Challenge Roundups, a compilation posted the last week of each month. Check out the challenges that were offered during the month of May and feel free to share your work or talk about the challenges in the comments section below.
Conquering Writer’s Block: Start Somewhere
Writers seem to be constantly debating whether or not writer’s block exists. Some claim that it’s a myth and attribute it to pure laziness. Others say that it’s a very real feeling of fear and anxiety that comes from a period of stagnation or lack of motivation. Whatever it’s called, sometimes you just feel a little stuck, with words that just won’t come. Sometimes that blinking cursor mocks you and you tap your fingers mindlessly on the keyboard, not knowing how to start, not knowing where to begin.
So then where do you begin?
Whether you’re starting a new story or returning to an old one, the idea of filling a blank page may seem like a daunting task you’d rather not tackle. How do you come up with something new, captivating? How do you start with that first sentence so that all the others that follow will flow quickly, easily, flawlessly? How do you return to the characters that once spoke to you when they’ve suddenly gone silent?
Maybe the trick is to just start somewhere.
The best advice I’ve ever read was to keep going, to write through it.
Too often, lack of motivation and anxiety about the blank page can hold us back. As writers, many of us are subject to believing that our first drafts have to be remarkable. But as writers, we get second, third, and fourth chances. As writers, we edit.
Your first draft is really just that — a place to get started, a puzzle with which you can begin filling in the pieces to see the larger picture. Start with the outline, the edges — a single scene, thought, piece of dialogue or setting. Whatever comes to mind, put pen to paper and start writing.
Trust that the rest of the pieces will begin to fall into place.
Trust the story.
And trust yourself.
7 commentsWednesday Writing Challenge: Book Titles
Typescript posts a new challenge each Wednesday to encourage creativity and inspire conversation. Feel free to talk about the challenge or share your writing results in the comments section below by leaving an excerpt and/or a link to your own site or blog.
The spark of inspiration can be found anywhere you choose to look. From a title of a song to a sketch found on a napkin, from an overheard conversation to a title of a book, these stories are waiting to be discovered and told.
It’s no secret that people tend to judge books by their covers. The titles and the cover art are what grab a reader’s attention, makes them reach for the book on the shelf and open up to the first page, entices them to discover the world and words within.
Book titles create that initial peak in curiosity as they hint to the reader the journey in which they’re about to take part. However, sometimes the story can be found within the title itself. The title often holds significant meaning for the book, but often can spark inspiration and get those wheels turning for your own story. It asks questions that keeps you wondering: who is the old man and what is his connection to the sea? Who is this survivor, what did they survive, and are they the only one? What’s being carried, for what reason, and who are “they?”
Pay close attention to the titles, judge those books by their cover, and let them spark ideas for setting, character, and plot in your own stories.
Challenge: Use one or more of the titles below as a prompt for a new short story or poem. Know the story already? Try putting your own twist on it.
Special thanks to Julie Rickards for her “To Kill A Mockingbird” recommendation! What titles and/or cover art intrigue and inspire you?
4 commentsWednesday Writing Challenge: Word Play
Typescript posts a new challenge each Wednesday to encourage creativity and inspire conversation. Feel free to talk about the challenge or share your writing results in the comments section below by leaving an excerpt and/or a link to your own site or blog.
The spark of inspiration can be found anywhere you choose to look. From a title of a song to a sketch found on a napkin, from an overheard conversation to a jumble of words, these stories are waiting to be discovered and told.
I know this seems a little unconventional, but maybe this is proof that inspiration really does come from everywhere…
I had well over three hundred spam comments in my blog folder this weekend. Usually I hit the Delete All button, but I’ve managed to miss some wayward posts before and thought I would take a quick peek to make sure potentially valid comments didn’t slip through the cracks. As I skimmed the posts, I found myself intrigued by these spam comments — the first few words read like the beginning of a story before spouting off in a nonsensical diatribe of random words selling links and generic drugs.
But those few words caught my attention, sparking interest, sparking something.
One of the most fascinating aspects of writing is the ability to manipulate words and language to convey your intended meaning. Words have so many meanings within their own definitions, and coupling them with others can produce something not entirely expected but altogether magical. There are a thousand ways to describe an object, person, or place, and so, too, are there thousands of stories just waiting to be plucked out of the imagination and put to paper. Sometimes all we need to create that initial spark of inspiration is a word (or two)…
Challenge: Use one of the following couplings of words to create a new story or poem
(Note: many of these have had minor alterations to make a little bit more sense):
Bianca walked in on a conspiracy
Their love could follow moonstones
Nicolai came to the gate forty years, looked doubtful
The chameleon cried
Chapel spirits can a jury decide
Millie departed, her passion crushed
Jaime finally wanted you
Hell existed always
They remained men (in a world where the soul hesitated)
Rains hesitated, wiping their feet
Fate meddled, not budging, harassing them
Stars kept remember seeing, analyzing those
Perhaps when just a tear was such assurance
Hardly enough responded
Danny thought of freedom before marriage, without responsibilities
Music restores him pain
Question once a dream is born
Bonus: String a collection of words together to create your own prompt!
5 commentsWednesday Writing Challenge: Emily Dickinson
Typescript posts a new challenge each Wednesday to encourage creativity and inspire conversation. Feel free to talk about the challenge or share your writing results in the comments section below by leaving an excerpt and/or a link to your own site or blog.
The spark of inspiration can be found anywhere you choose to look. From a title of a song to a sketch found on a napkin, from an overheard conversation to a line of poetry, these stories are waiting to be discovered and told.
Writers have a relationship with words that is undeniable. They are able to manipulate language to bring characters to life, unveil emotion, and offer the reader experiences through the comfort of a story. Poets weave that same magic, with meaning given to every single word. So often, there are lines that stand out and speak to the reader, that linger long after the poem has been read. These are words of wisdom and thought nestled in stanzas full of style and imagery and, sometimes, even a little bit of unconventional punctuation.
Emily Dickinson was a 19th century American Poet best known for titles such as “Hope is the Thing With Feathers,” “Because I Could Not Stop for Death,” and “Heart, We Will Forget Him” (ironically, her original poetry lacked titles). Having lived a fairly secluded and private life, Dickinson published few works throughout her lifetime, though her collection of nearly 1800 poems was published posthumously beginning in 1890. Dickinson’s writing style is easily recognizable and is marked by short lines, the personification of nature and abstract thought, and unconventional capitalization and use of dashes; however, her imagery and subject matter can also be easily distinguished and attributed.
Emily Dickinson is one of my favorite poets for her writing on the subjects of life, death, and love, as I often find simple messages of wisdom and inspiration tucked between those notorious dashes and capital letters. What meaning will they spark for you?
Challenge: Use one of the following prompts from Dickinson’s poetry to create a new short story or poem:
“the Heaven we chase”
“I know that he exists somewhere, in silence.”
“he lived where dreams were born”
“the hands still hug the tardy glass”
“lead the wandering sails”
“I should have been too saved”
“I years had been from home”
“a door just opened on a street”
“ashes denote that fire was”
“I know a place where summer strives”
Talk-back: What’s your writing style?
5 commentsLife and Love In Written Words
I have half a dozen blog entries waiting to be written and stories that are longing to be told, but there’s something building inside of me, waiting to emerge; there’s an emotion that needs to be recognized, put to paper, typed on the screen…
It’s love.
Love for words, love for language.
Love for writing.
Love for life.
For me, writing is so much more than a passion. I need to write. I need it like I need the air to breathe, and maybe ever so much more. There was a time when I had lost that, where writing became a chore, a struggle, where words were merely made up of letters, lacking meaning, and stories were like wistful daydreams, imagined and discarded.
But now…Now a longing for expression wells up from somewhere so deep inside of me, and my fingers tingle with anticipation to let them out, set them free, follow them wherever they might lead. My mind races with a thousand thoughts and the outside world disappears and suddenly it’s just me…Just me and an eruption of words and a desire greater than anything I’ve ever known — a need to explore the world, ask what if, question why not.
There’s that longing to cross invisible boundaries and experience things that can only be imagined, can only be dreamed. You want to understand people, understand yourself. You want to make sense of something impossible, you want to create beauty and experience wonder and express the deepest emotions that might never dare pass your lips.
And you know that nothing can compare to this world that you’ve imagined, these characters and settings you’re creating, but it brings tears to your eyes because there’s a chance, and you know you can believe in something good, something better, something lasting, and something true. It makes you recognize that beauty does exist in this world, makes you realize that you can find inspiration in the colors of the trees, see memories in a smile, a teardrop, and hear words of hope whispered through the silence.
I’ve never felt more alive, more inspired, than when I’m feeling, when I’m writing. This is the core of who I am, when everything else is stripped away. All I’m left with is a passion to discover and experience and imagine and feel, and it runs so deep that it takes my breath away.
There is life everywhere. Everywhere. And it sends warm chills down your arms and travels to your fingers and makes your heart skip a beat in awe and excitement and you want to capture it, savor it, remember it.
You want to tell its story.
You want to write.
6 commentsMay Giveaway: Spring Writing Basket
Every month, Typescript will post a new giveaway, with recipients chosen at random on the 15th of each month. Submit your name and email in the comments below and you’ll be automatically placed in the drawing. Please only submit once; if you’re chosen, you’ll be contacted for your shipping address.
If you have a book or product you’d like to see featured in a future giveaway, feel free to contact me.
Typescript was born out of a passion for writing and a desire to connect with and help other writers find success and inspiration in their own work. Since its debut, Typescript has been a dream realized, as each of you have played a part in building a great community of readers and writers while allowing me to indulge in an outlet and share my own writing and experiences.
To say thank you, Typescript is offering a special giveaway for the month of May in the form of a small “writing basket.” Included, as pictured above, is a writing journal, a pack of OfficeMax® retractable ballpoint pens, a computer mouse pad that serves as a to-do list and calendar to help keep you on-track, and a set of three stacked memo pads reminding you to Dream, Hope, and Inspire.
While only one will receive the writing basket, my gratitude for this community reaches out to all. Thanks for visiting Typescript, and thanks, especially, for being my own inspiration.
Congratulations to Hope F., recipient of Typescript’s May giveaway!
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